@Semiclassical You've developed the restraint to check your interest in jumping in to answer a poor question, as tough as it is to not do so. I had to learn that too, the hard way. It's hard to know how to help others restrain such instinct. I've seen a good number of users curtail that instinct over time, but "they gotta wanna" restrain. For some, their too enamored with rep. I can understand how initially users might want to gain privileges and trusted user status. I really can.
Anyway, glad to have you among us, @Semiclassical!
I don't know that this is necessarily a bad question, but I am not sure that it is a good question either. I've gone back and forth over the day... too opinion based?
@XanderHenderson: one needs to get some historical context on definition of Cauchy sequences. Unless we have any authentic references on that people will just give their opinion/preference for one definition over another. By the way I have no idea of the relevant history.
@Anselm678 English is not required here. Personally, I prefer that posts are written in English, as the majority of the users here are from English speaking places, but there is nothing in the guidelines which demands that users post in English.
Is it just me or is this question unclear? Perhaps it is just a language issue (English is neither OP's nor my first language) but I honestly fail to understand what is asked there.
One of the answerers of this now deleted question have commented about a serious punishment for answering question. I think we shouldn't lose basic civic sense in such situations
Please understand, @TeresaLisbon, I am not faulting your ideas on meta. But your suggestions are not the first time they've been expressed, and likely will not be the last time they'll be expressed.
@amWhy "showing work is NO context". What do you think about this statement ? Did I misinterprete the policy ? For me, showing work ever was the crucial part, additional context is of course welcome. And concerning the recent debate about cheating : Just because we cannot always decide whether a post is cheating, there is no reason not to fight against cheating wherever it occurs. This should be self-evident.
@Peter I think what Xander meant was it was NOT the only way to provide context. Are referring to the comment he left below the answer of a frequent PSQ answerer.
@amWhy I completely agree with your views, I am really doing this to address those potential answerers and reviewers who are, in the name of reviewing and correcting questions, adopting an approach which is harmful to the OP. It is better if a potential answerer ignores the question for lack of context, than if he/she intrudes and puts out a comment that does harm to the prospects of the question.
@Semiclassical I think it depends on what we consider as "shown work". If you mean the proof trials of famous open conjectures , I agree. They are not suitable for this site. But many interesting questions about number theory vanished because some users called them "numerlogy". Not everyone is interested in , lets say , Mersenne primes. So the motivation part is necessarily a quite subjective matter.
@Peter I recall dismissing such a post as numerology at one point, because the asker put forward a bunch of relations and simulations, but no motivation for the problem. A bunch of folk came along and said "well, of course this is is interesting!", but no one ever bothered to actually edit the question to explain why it was interesting.
It was, I suppose, meant to be obvious why the question was interesting.
But, like I said in here recently, nothing in mathematics is obvious. If you can't give a one or two sentence explaining why anyone might care about your question, then I am not sure why that question should be on Math SE, since Math SE is supposed to be a repository of questions and answers which might be interesting.
And, honestly, it doesn't take much: "I am trying to understand result [x] about 'complex dimensions'. Complex dimensions were introduced while studying the wave equation on sets with fractal boundaries, hence I expect that this question might be interesting to people who do analysis on fractals."
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Right there I've given context for the problem by placing it in a body of theory, and indicated the likely audience for the question (analysis-on-fractals folk). If I could squeeze some insight into my own background in there, I would be feeling pretty great!
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Anyway, I'm just checking in and stirring the pot. I'm not really here. Laters.
